Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

IMHO it is quite simple: change the background colour of the banner region (#basic_header) to rgb(13,115,163) and eliminate the background image (less graphics to download improves the speed over slow networks and reduced the bandwidth load on your server(s) too) and remove the width instruction:

As I said... Easier for something like a forum, extremely crap for a webpage with any content in it..also not as good for branding and continuity of design over multiple sites if they all have different layout etc...

Also a lot harder to read extremely long lines of text..

How would that affect us lowly paupers.. that don't have an arsewipe... or a 99" LCD...

Except if you're running 800x600...


Is the layout the important part of a website? Or, is information and the products the important part? If you're trying to sell products and disseminate information, so, as long as the website meets the three basic criteria for good design i.e. functionality, navigability and usability, with the use of templates and css, it's easy to give a constant look and feel to an entire site, even with dynamic content.



Different people have different limits, which is why imposing limits on people should be discouraged and users encouraged to set their own preferences by adjusting their own window sizes, font sizes etc. As the forum stands at the moment, people preferring to read very short lines of text are having a limit imposed on them that lines are too long; people preferring to read longer lines of text are having a limit imposed on them that lines are too short.

Huh... I don't feel limited in what I can read.. in any way...

There is a sentence length that is comfortable to read and the sweet spot is between 8 and 12 words in one line - it helps with your eyes tracking one line to the next - that's why with looong sentences your eye struggles to find the next line...

Perhaps I should have just said right at the start... Sorry, that aint going to happen any time in the near future..

I still have a list of things that need doing longer than my arm and I'm just happy that the thing is up and working at the moment..

Whether you feel it or not... the limit is there and has been forced upon you. If you want to have more information displayed per screen, without scrolling, you cannot.

By making a few small changes to the way they go about their business, web designers can allow users (the people whom websites are supposed to be targeting) to see the information how the user wants it displayed and not have limitations thrust on them.

There has already been discussion when the font-size changed unexpectedly. IMHO, the use of absolute font-sizes by designers should be avoided at all costs for on-screen display and the user allowed to select a suitable size font for themselves; hence the reason why it strongly recommended to use percentages or ems instead of pts, so the designer has the freedom to define what is large and small (in relative terms) but the user decides what is large and small in absolute terms. Fixed font sizes can be used (with care) when the target media is a fixed size i.e. a sheet of printed A4.


According to MS Word, the above paragraph contains 49 words, over two lines on my screen is nearly 25 words per line, or twice the "comfortable" length, and there are more words on the first line than the second?!


I guess I will just have to keep intercepting the CSS and making local adjustments to suit my own likes and desires.

Hey Bunson,

If you want the text to fill the entire width of the screen, just hold down the control key, and hit the equals button a few times.


Voila!





I hear what you're saying, but liquid layouts like that are only better in a few cases (like, 10% of users). Most users are better off with fixed layouts. You probably fit into that elite 10%

Your forced by limitations every moment of your waking life in many areas... If you feel that it is "enforcing limitations" on you, release yourself from those bonds, get up, go and look out a window.

When you drive on the road you have limitations, when you walk out your door you have limitations, you can't do it naked or swearing at the top of your lungs, these are all things you do freely, but you have limitations.. You can use this forum freely, but there are limitations...

That only makes the font-size larger, and Ctrl-0 to reset, but it doesn't make better use of the available screen real-estate, it just fills the entire space with the same information.

What I do, is using Firefox, edit the userContent.css for BYAP as such:


which overrides the downloaded styles and presents the page in a way which is pleasing to me, and allows me to change the screen size to view more/less information as I like, but the issue is that web-designers and publishers should not be expecting users to edit their styles to have better access to the information, the designers should be ensuring that users have the best possible access.

BTW: the style sheet used is fluid already, if you make these minor changes.



How many groups of 10% do you want to alienate? The 10% who are the tech-nerds, another 10% who are using old-school equipment, another 10% who are using shared internet connections or dial-up, another 10% who are vision impaired etc. By the time you ignore the needs/wants of these groups, you have no customers left!

Bunson, chill.

Oh how I missed your rants Bunson.... now where's Bullwinkle so my day is complete

Not trying to be personal Bunson, but do you work in a customer service environment?

We try to work here to the lowest common denominator, we have to make things as simple as possible to your average Jo punter.

Do you think it is by accident that almost every website imposes a ~1000px limit on pages..

Do you honestly think that every single major bank and almost every major commercial business creates websites to these standards, if it was going to scare away customers?

If, as you say, you can adjust and override the style sheets to be to your liking, well that's great, perhaps start a thread and let everyone know about how they can do it for themselves. IF they are that way inclined and they want to change the layout to suit themselves, then they can. Everyone is happy...